1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to modified ear tags, comprising a mandrel-type plate, a counter-plate, in addition to a container for receiving a sample and a means for obtaining said sample, wherein the means for obtaining said sample has a detachable hollow tip and the counter-plate has no through opening for the mandrel. The invention relates more particularly to the use of said ear tags for marking animals by simultaneously withdrawing a biological sample, as well as to a method for marking animals with said ear tags.
2. Description of Related Art including information disclosed under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
Ear tags (or ear marks) have been used for a long time for marking and identifying animals, whereby flexible ear tags/ear marks made of plastics, mostly polyurethane or polyethylene, have generally been adopted in the last years. All of said ear tags comprise a mandrel-type plate, also called male part of male flag, and a female part, the counter-plate or female flag. The mandrel-type plate normally comprises a mandrel carrying a tip made of metal or a hard plastics material. The counter-plate comprises an opening, through which the mandrel is pressed when the ear tag is closed after the ear has been penetrated, so that said two ear tag parts are connected with each other. When inserting conventional ear tags, the ear is punctured with the sharp tip of the mandrel, i.e. the tip penetrates through the skin, the cartilage and the skin on the opposite side of the ear.
The tip of the mandrel of the ear tag is normally pushed through the skin and the cartilage in a punctual manner, and the skin and the cartilage are ripped up in the form of a longitudinal tear to an extent sufficient to allow the entire head of the mandrel to slip there through. The result is that the mandrel of the inserted ear tag is more or less firmly surrounded by the spread apart ear tissue which closes elastically. A drawback thereby resides in that the margins of the wound are strongly irritated by the rotational and, drawing movements of the ear tag in the wound so that the healing thereof is inhibited. Present or penetrated bacteria may moreover frequently cause swellings, suppuration with secretion congestion and the development of luxuriant granulation tissue.
Ear tags have lately also been used to simultaneously obtain a tissue sample for a later DNA analysis when the ear tag is inserted. A method for withdrawing a tissue sample into numbered sample capsules is, for example, described in DE 197 40 429 A1. According to this method the numbers of the used ear tags and the numbers of the sample container are linked to each other electronically.
An ear tag is additionally described in PCT/EP98/03075, according to which the ear tag and the receiving container are provided with the same coding and the same animal identification number by means of laser or other technologies prior to the issue to the users. This ensures an identity linking of ear tag and tissue sample receiving container without errors and confusions. The hollow tip of the mandrel, which is connected with the mandrel via a predetermined breaking point, takes a sample in the ear, transports the same automatically into the receiving container, separates from the mandrel and hermetically seals the sample in the receiving container.
The container for receiving the sample is normally withdrawn and collected after the ear tag has been inserted. It may, however, also adhere to the ear tag without any problems and thus remain on the animal, if desired. The processes of inserting the ear tags and obtaining the tissue sample thus take place independently of each other. The collection of the tissue sample may, in principle, even take place years after the ear tag was inserted, by separating at this time only the container for receiving the sample from the female flag of the ear tag.
In the European Union it is stipulated by legal regulation that all born calves have to be provided with two ear tags within the first week after their birth. If the ear tags described in PCT/EP98/03075 are now used for said marking, the receiving container of the one ear tag could, for instance, be withdrawn immediately after the ear tag was inserted, whereas the receiving container of the second ear tag remains—connected with the female flag—on the animal. Later, e.g. when the animal is exported, slaughtered or cut up, the second container for receiving the sample still provided on the animal, which contains a sample since the ear tag was inserted, is withdrawn and delivered to the laboratory for the analysis of the same. This procedure saves, in view of the test sample, the recovery and the marking of a new sample and enables the obtainment of an unmistakable second sample, as the same was marked with the ear tag simultaneously, which had been withdrawn already at the beginning of the animal's life, but was preserved in the container 1 for receiving the sample and remained on the animal and is used, for example, only at the end of the animal's life.
It has shown that it may happen with newborn animals of certain species that the withdrawal of a sample cannot be accomplished with the desired reliability. If animals, especially lambs or piglets, are very young, the entire ear is so soft that its resistance during the punching process is too small. If the insertion of the ear tags is performed in an unskilled manner, the ear tissue is consequently ripped up and not precisely punctured/punched. In such cases a withdrawal/recovery of a tissue sample does not always take place. The function of the ear tag is, as such, not influenced thereby.
It was, therefore, the object of the present invention to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks of the prior aft.